Religious Group Blasts FBI Memo: ‘Unconstitutional Effort to Surveil Catholics’
A Catholic advocacy group tore into the FBI on Wednesday over revelations that an effort from the bureau’s Richmond, Virginia, office to target certain “traditionalist” Catholics may have been more widespread.
CatholicVote referenced a less redacted version of an FBI document released by the House Judiciary Committee that revealed involvement from the bureau’s Portland and Los Angeles offices in an initiative that had initially appeared isolated to the Richmond office.
“The FBI has finally acknowledged what we have long suspected, namely that FBI efforts to spy on Catholic churches went far beyond a single field office and a so-called rogue agent,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch said in a statement.
Burch added, “Further, these new FBI admissions raise even more questions now about the intent, purpose, and scope of this illegal and unconstitutional effort to surveil Catholics inside of churches across America.”
The document, which was first leaked soon after its internal issuance by the FBI’s Richmond field office in January, functioned as a threat assessment of “radical-traditionalist Catholics.” The FBI determined they made up a “small minority of overall Roman Catholic adherents” and that there existed an “increasingly observed interest” of violent extremists within that particular group of Catholics. (Read more from “Religious Group Blasts FBI Memo: ‘Unconstitutional Effort to Surveil Catholics’” HERE)
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